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Avaya LLC(), formerly Avaya Inc., is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includes unified communications and contact center services. In 2019, the company provided services to 220,000 customer locations in 190 countries.

History

In 1995, AT&T Corporation renamed their subsidiary AT&T Technologies to Lucent Technologies and spun it off in 1996. Lucent subsequently spun off units of its own in an attempt to restructure its struggling operations.

Avaya Inc. was spun off from Lucent as its own company in 2000 (Lucent merged with Alcatel SA in 2006, becoming Alcatel-Lucent, which was purchased in turn by Nokia in 2016). Avaya Inc. were listed on the NYSE using the symbol AV from 2000 to 2007. In October 2007, Avaya Inc. was acquired for $8.2 billion by Sierra Holdings Corp owned by two private-equity firms, TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners. On June 6, 2011 Sierra Holdings Corp. was renamed Avaya Holdings Corp.

On November 19, 2014, Avaya was confirmed as the naming rights partner for the San Jose Earthquakes' new stadium, officially called Avaya Stadium, paying $20 million over a 10-year deal.

On January 19, 2017, Avaya Inc. and related affiliates including Avaya Holdings Corp. petitioned for protection from creditors during reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A restructuring plan for Avaya Holdings Corp. agreed upon during mediation was given effect by the court's order November 28, 2017.

In December 2017, Avaya requested a federal judge to reduce their commitment to the Earthquakes' stadium name agreement. After Avaya vacated their naming rights, the venue was renamed Earthquakes Stadium in 2020 and PayPal Park in 2021 after PayPal bought the naming rights.

On December 15, 2017, trading in Avaya Holdings Corp. shares listed on the NYSE began under the symbol AVYA.

On February 14, 2023, Avaya once again petitioned for protection from creditors during restructuring under Chapter 11 with a restructuring plan already agreed on with their creditors. On February 15, 2023 the NYSE announced that shares of Avaya no longer qualified for listing on the New York Exchange and would cease to be traded there. Although the proposed restructuring plan would wipe out the shares, several securities dealers announced that they would begin making a market in Avaya shares effective February 16, 2023 using the symbol AVYAQ and trading 'over the counter', i.e. a securities dealer is a counterparty of each trade. On May 1, 2023, Avaya Holdings Corp. completed its financial restructuring, emerging from bankruptcy owned by its former creditors as the private company Avaya LLC.

Acquisitions and partnerships

Since 2001, Avaya has sold and acquired several companies. Through Nortel's bankruptcy proceedings, assets related to their Enterprise Voice and Data business units were auctioned. Avaya placed a $900 million bid, and was announced as the winner of the assets on September 14, 2009. In 1985, Performance Engineering Corporation (later PEC Solutions) was formed to offer technology services to government customers. On June 6, 2005, Nortel acquired PEC Solutions to form Nortel PEC Solutions. On January 18, 2006, Nortel PEC Solutions was renamed Nortel Government Solutions. On December 21, 2009, Avaya acquired Nortel's government business as part of the company's assets sale.

In October 2019, Avaya entered into a strategic partnership with RingCentral and together, introduced a new unified communications as a service solution called Avaya Cloud Office ("ACO"). RingCentral also contributed $500 million to be the exclusive provider of the new Avaya UCaaS offering.

Locations and customers

Avaya's headquarters are at 350 Mt. Kemble Avenue, Morristown, New Jersey 07960 US. In 2020, the company had a presence in approximately 190 countries.

The company claims that its cloud services are utilized by over 90% of the Fortune 100 organizations. Avaya enterprise customers include Apple, AT&T, Dell, CVS Health, as well as government organizations.

Avaya sponsors the IAUG users' group and training programs for IT professional certification in the use of Avaya's products.

Avaya provides business related equipment for its customers such as cameras, collaboration units, conference phones, headsets, IP phones, room systems, Vantage, and wireless handsets. These devices are compatible with various options for the three services provided to its customers as Avaya Cloud Office, Avaya Spaces, and Avaya UCaaS.

Patents

Avaya has over 4,400 patents and patents pending. In January 2021, the company disclosed it had received its 600th patent for Contact Center technologies, which was granted for AI in "chatbot socialization."

References

External links

Patents assigned to Avaya

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Official Canadian partner site

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Corporate spin-offs
Lucent Technologies
2000 establishments in California
2007 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 2000
Computer companies of the United States
Computer hardware companies
Electronics companies established in 2000
Multinational companies headquartered in the United States
Networking companies of the United States
Networking hardware companies
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Companies traded over-the-counter in the United States
Software companies established in 2000
Telecommunications companies established in 2000
Telecommunications companies of the United States
Telecommunications equipment vendors
TPG Capital companies
Videotelephony
VoIP companies of the United States
2011 initial public offerings
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023
2018 initial public offerings
Software companies of the United States